It's that time of year again. It's time for March Mayhem! This year we let you, the readers, choose who was going to make it to the big show. Now it's time for you to pick the winners. We have some very interesting match-ups this year and, with any luck, we'll see some of the plucky independent developers blow some AAA companies out of the water. We have some new faces on here, Galactic Cafe is new to the scene after developing the smash hit Stanley Parable, and Lucas Pope who came up with the sleeper hit, and narrow runner up of Escapist's Reader's Choice Game of 2013 with Papers, Please.

This year we're ready to make history and let one lucky developer join the illustrious ranks crowned winners. The previous champions have been Valve (twice), Turbine (twice), and Mojang. Let's see who else we can add to that list of winners.

This year we have 16 developers to whittle down to find out the top dog developer of the pack. There are eight independent and eight AAA developers that have made it, by community choice, into the sweet sixteen, and now's the time for them to fight it out, Thunderdome style, all for your amusement. The stage is set for an epic throwdown between some of the most influential developers in the history of gaming, so don't forget to grab a seat and some popcorn.

Bracket submission is now open. Make your predictions of who is going to win each round and, if you win, the top ten bracket owners will get a sweet limited edition badge and a yearlong subscription to The Escapist Publishers Club. Don't be shy, we all know that everyone wants to be the first kid on their block with a winning March Mayhem bracket. So make a bee line to the submission and show the world you know how to pick 'em.

Story:I tried to play it safe and voted for the most productive game company of last year. So no Valve for me.

That made some of my decisions weird. I thought Bioshock was just ok, but I didn't play anything by Valve this year (not a MOBA fan). If I was picking favorites, I'd definitely take Bioware over Naughty Dog, but I have no interest in the Star Wars MMO, so now I'm picking Naughty Dog? Haven't played Last of Us, but it looks ok.

Luckily, Paradox has put out a lot of good new games and excellent DLC for CK2, so I have them winning.

kiri2tsubasa:I'm calling it. People will vote for valve because of steam sales and not because of DOTA 2 which was the only game they released in 2013.

Oh dear Christ, not this again.

Yes, they will. As they may.

This is a popularity contest. There are no rules. You may vote for any reason. You may vote for a company because they made your GOTY 2013. You may vote for a company because of their charity work. You may vote on a company based on which protagonist had the best hat. You may vote based on how many Vs are in the company's title.

Please don't talk about how "unfair" it is that people aren't voting based on how you arbitrarily decided people should vote. It's a popularity contest. It's about which companies you like, not what they've done.

So basically out of most of this competition Valve is going to win by a massive landslide yet again?, wake up up when something different happens like maybe if Gamefreak or nintendo actually win at something.

lacktheknack:This is a popularity contest. There are no rules. You may vote for any reason. You may vote for a company because they made your GOTY 2013. You may vote for a company because of their charity work. You may vote on a company based on which protagonist had the best hat. You may vote based on how many Vs are in the company's title.

Please don't talk about how "unfair" it is that people aren't voting based on how you arbitrarily decided people should vote. It's a popularity contest. It's about which companies you like, not what they've done.

It always pisses me off when people create their own rules for voting and try to force them on others. Just like lacktheknack says, you can choose any criteria you want when you vote, but stop bitching just because people don't use your criteria.

Well, this shouldn't be too hard to do... I mean, submitting that GOTY 2013 bracket was easy...*looks at the MM bracket*Dammit! This is already too close to call!!*thinks*Time to use my "blind man's bluff" buff right off the bat...*already feels like he's made the wrong choices*

lacktheknack:This is a popularity contest. There are no rules. You may vote for any reason. You may vote for a company because they made your GOTY 2013. You may vote for a company because of their charity work. You may vote on a company based on which protagonist had the best hat. You may vote based on how many Vs are in the company's title.

Please don't talk about how "unfair" it is that people aren't voting based on how you arbitrarily decided people should vote. It's a popularity contest. It's about which companies you like, not what they've done.

There should at least be a rule that companies which have already won a bracket are excluded from future contests. At least for a couple years, anyway.

lacktheknack:This is a popularity contest. There are no rules. You may vote for any reason. You may vote for a company because they made your GOTY 2013. You may vote for a company because of their charity work. You may vote on a company based on which protagonist had the best hat. You may vote based on how many Vs are in the company's title.

Please don't talk about how "unfair" it is that people aren't voting based on how you arbitrarily decided people should vote. It's a popularity contest. It's about which companies you like, not what they've done.

There should at least be a rule that companies which have already won a bracket are excluded from future contests. At least for a couple years, anyway.

Sylocat:There should at least be a rule that companies which have already won a bracket are excluded from future contests. At least for a couple years, anyway.

Why?

There's no reason to do that.

For the sake of balance. If you're going to have the same couple fandoms swamping the polls year after year, there's no reason to have a contest at all.

That's not what's happened, though.

First year: Turbine won because they alerted the troops, beating out Harmonix. Much rage was had.Second year: Turbine won again, as above, beating out Bioware. Much rage was had. Bioware would continue to be the runner-up every time afterwards.Third year: There was a terrifying 4Chan infused slap fight to take down Zynga. We did so (with much blood), and Valve won the final less-consequential round.Fourth year: Mojang dark-horsed everyone. Much WAT was had.Fifth year: The only really boring one, where Valve harmlessly won.

Notice how none of the years minus the first two played out even remotely similarly.

Strange to see only 16 devs in the tournament this year. I thought the whole point was that this was mirroring March Madness with 64 teams in it? I preferred the 64, those first two rounds were fun when picking out potential dark horses or seeing the big names get a run for their money from the tiny devs. With only 16 though, there isn't as much variety; all the AAA devs are big names and all the indie devs have a devoted fanbase.

You could argue that they've just gotten rid of the first two 'useless rounds' and we're only left with the potential winners, but it was fun seeing all the names who had at least a shot at winning, even if they never would realistically.